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Deuteronomy 13

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1 If there shall arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and give thee a sign or a wonder.

2 And the sign or the wonder shall come to pass, of which he spoke to thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

3 Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave to him.

5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou remove the evil from the midst of thee.

6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, who is as thy own soul, shall entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

7 Namely, of the gods of the people who are around you, nigh to thee, or far off from thee, from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth;

8 Thou shalt not consent to him, nor hearken to him; neither shall thy eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:

9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

10 And thou shalt stone him with stones that he shall die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.

11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is, among you.

12 If thou shalt hear, in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,

13 Certain men, the children of Belial, have gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;

14 Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and behold, if it is truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;

15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is in it, and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.

16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of its street, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil of it every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be a heap forever; it shalt not be built again.

17 And there shall cleave naught of the cursed thing to thy hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn to thy fathers;

18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 2959

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2959. 'The land [is worth] four hundred shekels of silver' means the price of redemption by means of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'four hundred shekels', dealt with below, and from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2048, 2937. The reason 'four hundred shekels' means the price of redemption is that 'four hundred' means vastation and 'a shekel' price. What vastation is, see 2455 (end), 2682, 2694, 2699, 2702, 2704, where it is shown that there are two types of vastation. The first takes place when the Church altogether ceases to exist, that is, when there is no longer any charity or faith. At that point the Church is said to be vastated or laid waste. The second takes place when those who belong to the Church are reduced to a state of ignorance and also of temptation, for the reason that the evils and falsities residing with them are to be set apart and so to speak dissipated. Those who emerge from this vastation are those who are specifically called the redeemed, for at that point they are taught the goods and truths of faith, and are reformed and regenerated by the Lord, as shown in the paragraphs quoted. Now since the number four hundred, when used to specify a period of time - such as four hundred years - means the duration and also the state of vastation, so that same number, when used to specify the number of shekels, means the price of redemption; and when the word 'silver' is mentioned together with this number, the price of redemption by means of truth is meant.

[2] That 'four hundred years' means the duration and the state of vastation becomes clear also from what Abraham was told,

Jehovah said to Abraham, 1 Know for sure that your seed will be strangers in a land not theirs. And they will serve them, and these will afflict them for four hundred years. Genesis 15:13.

There it may be seen that 'four hundred years' is used to mean the duration of the stay of the children of Israel in Egypt. Yet it is not the duration of their stay in Egypt that is meant but something that is not evident to anyone except from the internal sense. This becomes clear from the fact that the duration of the stay of the children of Israel in Egypt was no more than half the stated period, as becomes quite clear from the descendants of Jacob down to Moses. For the facts are that Levi was descended from Jacob, Kohath from Levi, Amram from Kohath, and Aaron and Moses from Amram, Exodus 6:16-20; Levi and his son Kohath went down to Egypt together with Jacob, Genesis 46:11; and Moses came two generations later, and was eighty years old when he spoke to Pharaoh, Exodus 7:7. These facts show that the period of time from Jacob's entry into Egypt until his sons' departure from that land was approximately two hundred and fifteen years.

[3] That 'four hundred' is used in the Word to mean something other than its numerical value in the historical sense is clearer still from its being said that

The length of time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years, and at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, it happened on that same day, that all the armies of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt. Exodus 12:40-41.

The duration of the stay of the children of Israel in that land was in fact only half that number of years; but it was from Abraham's entry into Egypt that the four hundred and thirty years were measured. Consequently what is said at this point in Exodus is for the sake of the internal sense Lying within those words. In the internal sense the sojourn of the sons of Jacob in Egypt represents and means the vastation of the Church, the state and duration of which are described by the number four hundred and thirty years. Thirty describes the state of vastation of the sons of Jacob as being no vastation at all, for they were such as could not be reformed through any state of vastation (for the meaning of the number thirty, see 2276); and 'four hundred years' represents the general state of vastation of those who belonged to the Church.

[4] Those therefore who come out of that vastation are referred to as the redeemed, as is also evident from the words addressed to Moses,

Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from beneath the burdens of Egypt, and I will rescue you from their slavery, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgements. Exodus 6:6.

And elsewhere,

Jehovah has brought you out by means of a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Deuteronomy 7:8; 13:5.

And elsewhere,

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, but Jehovah your God redeemed you. Deuteronomy 15:15; 24:18.

In Samuel,

Your people whom You redeemed for Yourself from Egypt. 2 Samuel 7:23.

Since those who emerge from the state of vastation are referred to as the redeemed, 'four hundred shekels' therefore means the price of redemption.

[5] As regards 'a shekel' meaning the price or valuation, this is clear from the following places in the Word: In Moses,

All your valuations shall be according to the shekel of holiness. Leviticus 27:25.

And elsewhere,

If a soul commits a trespass and has sinned inadvertently in the holy things of Jehovah, he shall bring his guilt offering to Jehovah, a ram without blemish out of the flock, according to your valuation in silver shekels, according to the shekel of holiness. Leviticus 5:15.

From this it is evident that 'a shekel' means the price or valuation. It is called 'the shekel of holiness' because the price or valuation has regard to truth and good from the Lord - truth and good from the Lord being, within the Church, holiness itself. Consequently it is called 'the shekel of holiness' many times elsewhere, as in Exodus 30:24; Leviticus 27:3; Numbers 3:47, 50; 7:13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, 49, 55, 61, 67, 73; 18:16.

[6] That 'a shekel' is the price of what is holy is quite evident in Ezekiel when the holy land and the holy city are the subject. There the shekel is referred to as follows,

The shekel there shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh (pound). Ezekiel 45:12.

Anyone may see that here 'shekel', 'pound', and the numbers mentioned mean holy things, that is, good and truth, for the holy land and the holy city or new Jerusalem, which are the subject there, mean nothing else than the Lord's kingdom where neither shekel, nor gerahs, nor pound, nor the numbering of them occurs. But the number itself, from the meaning it has in the internal sense, determines the valuation or price of good and truth.

[7] In Moses it is said that every man (vir) should give a ransom for his soul, so that there would be no plague. He had to give half a shekel, according to the shekel of holiness, a shekel being twenty gerahs. Half a shekel was to be the thruma (offering) to Jehovah, Exodus 30:12-13. Here ten gerahs, which make half a shekel, are remnants which are received from the Lord. Remnants are goods and truths stored away with a person - such remnants, being meant by 'ten', see 576, 1738, 1906, 2284. That remnants are goods and truths from the Lord that are stored away with a person, see 1906, 2284. Consequently they are also called 'the thruma (or offering) to Jehovah', and it is said that by means of this a soul will be redeemed. The reason it is stated several times that a shekel was twenty gerahs, as in these verses from Exodus, and also in Leviticus 27:25; Numbers 3:47; 18:16; and elsewhere, is that the shekel of twenty gerahs means the valuation of the good preserved in remnants - twenty meaning the good preserved in remnants, see 2280. Also therefore a shekel was a weight according to which the price of both gold and silver was determined, Genesis 24:22; Exodus 38:24; Ezekiel 4:10; 45:12 - the price of gold because 'gold' means good, 113, 1551, 1552, and the price of silver because 'silver' means truth, 1551, 2048. From this it is now evident that 'the land [is worth] four hundred shekels of silver' means the price of redemption by means of truth. The reason it is called 'the land' is that the spiritual Church is the subject, which is reformed and regenerated by means of truth received from the Lord, 2954. That 'the land' means the Church, see 662, 1066, 1068, 1262, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end).

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. In Genesis 15 the patriarch's name is still Abram.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.